


Long Live These Times

by Aston (AstonT)



Series: Character Studies [2]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 08:34:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12295386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstonT/pseuds/Aston
Summary: Song playing while writing: The Reckless And The Brave - All Time LowKasamatsu Yukio character study





	Long Live These Times

Kasamatsu Yukio swore he wasn’t a protective person - he wasn’t, he didn’t want to protect others from what they got for their own stupidity.  
  
He had never been very fond of sugar-coating or pandering - why should he be, there was no point?  
  
He isn’t, by nature, someone that others drift to when they’re feeling less than because it’s well known that he doesn’t care to call them out as being rather stupid for worrying over trivial matters.  
  
He isn’t even sure where the blunt honesty comes from, but he knows it stays for a long while - it only ever drifts off when it’s concerning his family and even then he refuses to let anyone he cares for waste their time worrying over something that he doesn’t think of as worthy, especially if it could cause them pain.  
  
Somewhere along the lines of his junior high years, though, he began seeing that his blunt honesty wasn’t too much better than the surprisingly harsh insults.  
  
And maybe that’s when he began to change a little bit - he isn’t sure he could put it into a timeline properly if asked.  
  
He just knew that once people started looking more hurt than thankful for his honesty, it became a lot harder to talk to them, which led to a lot of people watching through those years on top of sports.  
  
So honestly, by the time his first year of high school hit, he could say that he felt like a different person than he had at the beginning of his first year in junior high. His brutal honesty still existed, of course, but it was softened more by an understanding of when it was acceptable to be as honest as he often wanted to be.  
  
The only thing that hadn’t changed was his love for basketball, and even then, he felt that fluctuate quite often within his first year.  
  
It’s half-way through a tournament when he finds that his stubborn personality comes in as useful for his teammates when they’re staring down an opponent that is a bit tougher than they’d expected.  
  
He’d watched as the others on the court with him slowly fell into an almost dejected state, and with a frown, had immediately spoken up to try to get them out of that so that they didn’t just give up.  
  
It was the first game he played more than a quarter of, and that’s mostly because their coach was almost afraid to take him off the court after seeing him motivate the others.

* * *

 

Really, looking back at just that, it shouldn’t have surprised him to be made captain.  
  
Once he had been, though, he found a good use for his old blunt honesty - it helped wonderfully when at practice with the others, especially incoming first years.  
  
Sure, there were some he wished they could do without sometimes - Kise being the main one to come to mind when he really thought about it - he refused to turn someone with skill away from a sport just because something about their personality irked him.  
  
He had limits, though, and everyone knew that by the time the second week of actual practice was over.  
  
But at the same time, he had gained everyone’s respect by then, too, because while he may not think he’s too great a captain, they certainly disagreed with his opinion.  
  
He learned almost as much from the others on the team as they did from him - like the fact that he didn’t always have to carry a burden alone, which surprised him due to it being a lesson that he learned alongside Kise in his third year, when he thought for sure that he’d learned all he possibly could from his team.  
  
He just hoped, as he left the final practice he would ever attend, that something he’d said or done would stick with those the third years were leaving behind.  
  
That’s all he could do, because for all he wanted to stay and guide them, he knew they had to stand on their own now, and damn if he didn’t hate that he’d become so protective when he used to think he’d never be that person.  
  
He wouldn’t trade it for the world, though.


End file.
